Topic: Pre-war international Glass Gazetteer (circa 1930)

[Lustrousstone]

Thank you Vera I look forward to reading it

[vetraio50]

Thanks too from me, Vera.

[Anne]

Vera, welcome to the board, and thank you for posting the link to your most interesting document which I have just read through and enjoyed.

[vetraio50]

I have also seen that when the Nazis confiscated Jewish property in the Teplice area in 1940 the owner of the Loewy works in Tischau was Hedwig Hirsch aka Hedwig Baum Hirsch (nee Steinwald). She married twice. She was the daughter of Ernst Steinwald, the glass manufacturer in Teplice.

The liquidated property of Jewish foundations and associations, especially financial ones, was transferred a fund called : "Auswanderungsfond für Böhmen und Mähren" The fund then financed the deportation of Jews to concentration camps. It seems that Emmahuette was retained and made into a POW camp : "Stalag IVC".

I believe that in 1940 Hedwig Hirsch was co-owner of Ernst Steinwald & Co., in Teplice with a cousin called Paul Karpeles (aka Pavel Karpeles).

Hedwig was also listed as being the owner of the following companies:
a) Josef Rindskopf ́s Söhne, Glasfabriken in Kosten, Dux und Tischau
b) Glasfabriken Fischmann Söhne
c) Glashüttenwerke "Emmahütte" Otto Löwy & Co. in Mstisov

Hedwig's date of death is not known but I believe she was a victim of the Holocaust.

Interestingly Paul Karpeles too went to England.
He was living at 30 Westcotes Drive, Leicester in April 1949. just a short walk to the Mawby & King factory. He died in Reigate in 1984.
It seems that in England he knew the manager of The English Glass Company Ltd. who had been a director of Glasfabriken Fischmann Söhne. His name was Josef Oplatek.
His story is contained in a book written by his son published in 2014 :
LITTLE THINGS IN GLASS AND METAL AND PLASTIC TOO
A biography of The English Glass Company Ltd 1934 to 1990
TOM J LAWSON  - GML PUBLISHING

[Vera]

Thank you for this further information about what happened to some of the glassworks in the Teplice area and to some of the people involved with them. Interesting to learn about the Czech involvement in glass companies in Leicester, which adds to my own research into the Czech glass factories in west Yorkshire and north London.

I am pleased to say that I believe Hedwig Hirsch came to England before the war and so survived the Holocaust. There is a public profile of her on Geni.com which gives her date of birth as August 1882 in Teplice and a child by her second marriage called Franz Hirsch. A Frantisek Hirsch was registered with the Czechoslovak Military in the UK in June 1943, date and place of birth July 1914 Teplice.

These sources have enabled me to trace Hedwig and Franz/Frantisek Hirsch in the September 1939 Register of people living in England at the outbreak of war. They are listed as residing in a household in Burgess Hill, Sussex headed by Ernest Mantner “Director Woven Materials Company”. Hedwig’s occupation is given as “Director of B H (Textiles)” and Franz’s as “Agricultural Student”. 

A Hedwig Hirsch died in June 1941 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire: her entry on the Government Death Probate Index shows her as being a widow, linked person “Frank Hirsch textile manufacturer”. A Franz Hirsch married Ruth Wollheim in Marylebone in early 1943. The couple were naturalised in March 1947 when they were resident in Belsize Grove, London NW3; Franz’s occupation is listed as “director”. They had a daughter born in 1945 in Hampstead.

So it seems that Hedwig switched from the glass industry in Czechoslovakia to the textile industry in England . . .

[Anne]

Vera, thank you for your new information, I'm finding all of this absolutely fascinating, as I've been pursuing info about some of these companies and people for a while in respect of my research into glass makers who made glass trinket sets.  If you happen across any catalogues from any of these glass companies or mentions of them making glass trinket sets would you please let me know? Many thanks.

[Frank]

Wow Vera, that fills many holes!